In The Devil's Stables (Spirited #1)

Chapter 32

Charlie watched the sky darken slowly, the soft fingers of blue giving way to bursts of orange and streaks of red before the pinks and purples turned to pitch darkness. And still, hours later, Charlie sat outside the stables, her knees drawn to her chest, her head tilted back on the boards as if the answers she was looking for would be found up there somewhere, in the dark.

After her confrontation with Greyson, Charlie had cursed the man rotten. Not only was he overbearing and overprotective, but he was stubborn and high-handed and irritating and so damned...handsome it made her ache.

A sigh broke through the night and Charlie drew her rough shawl back over her shoulders, a cool breeze kissing her cheeks. Williams had seen her return to the stables grumbling and cursing and had given her a wide berth - smart man. He had only approached an hour before seeking his own bed after Charlie had quieted and the sun was giving one last yawn over the horizon. He had settled the blanket about her shoulders without a word, and Charlie felt bitter tears sting her eyes.

This, she thought, this was what she had been missing for years. One simple show of affection, of companionship, and she was left blubbering like a child.

Charlie sniffed, hating the moment of weakness, as she drew the edges of her blanket tighter over her drawn up knees. She released her grip on the cloth with her right hand and dug into her pocket before pulling out the chess piece hidden there. 

The curves of the queen were familiar to her, and Charlie's handling of it through the years had worn off some of its black varnish, the tip of the queen rubbed white. She tilted it in the meager light of the moon. It was elegantly constructed, nigh on indestructible. The only lifeline to what had once been her life.

Was she being too defensive with Greyson? Charlie wondered. Had she cast him away at every turn like he had said?

Charlie was loathe to realize that she had.

Glancing at the earl's manor, her eyes lit on the few windows where a candle flickered softly, spots of fog casting a ghostprint on the glass. It left her feeling rather...lost.

She clenched the queen in her hand, her father's words of long ago whispering in her mind.

"The queen protects the king..."

Charlie's brow scrunched, "But shouldn't the king be protecting his lady, Papa?"

His eyes had crinkled. "Perhaps, but not always, little one...a good queen is always as powerful - if not more so - than her male counterpart."

Charlie lifted the queen, studying the intricate detail and wondering why the devil she had put so much faith in it for so long.

For what if her father had been - was, she corrected - wrong?

Perhaps Charlie was nothing more than a pawn while thinking herself the queen. As if she could protect what was hers, safeguard her future, and no one would stand in her way. And yet, Charlie found herself repeatedly subjected to the whims of society nevertheless - to the men who inhabited it. Her father had left her with no more protection than her uncle who had only used Charlie's inheritance to protect his own assets and business ventures. And Simpton who had attacked her for his own sense of power and vanity and greed. 

Then Greyson... 

Greyson asked the most impossible of all.

To believe that he could protect her was folly.

To believe that she was safe within his estate was foolish.

To believe in whatever attraction blossomed between them was foolhardy.